April 17 (SeeNews) - Romania's ruling Social Democrat Party (PSD) has withdrawn political support for justice minister Tudorel Toader and proposed to replace him by member of parliament Eugen Nicolicea, PSD leader Liviu Dragnea said on Wednesday.
The decision was taken by the party's executive committee in order to break a deadlock in the justice system, Dragnea said in a televised statement broadcast by Digi24 TV station.
Toader, a technocrat, has been repeatedly criticized by Dragnea and other MPs for refusing to move forth with an emergency decree granting amnesty for some corruption offences.
"The new justice minister will have to remove bottlenecks in the ministry. The new minister must also be concerned about the state of justice in Romania. Mr. Toader has been talking about the possibility of issuing the emergency decree without doing anything. There has been talking for four months," Dragnea said.
PSD sent both its decision to withdraw support for Toader and the proposal to put Nicolicea in his position to Romanian president Klaus Iohannis who has the final say on the potential reshuffle.
In March, thousands of Romanians and magistrates around the country protested against an emergency decree issued by the government that introduced changes to justice bills which critics saw as threatening the independence of the judiciary.